1/21/2009 @ 10:05PM

Apple Lets The Numbers Talk

Is Steve Jobs dying? Will
Apple
sue
Palm
? Will the Cupertino, Calif.-based phone and computer maker introduce a low-cost netbook to counter the hot-selling gadgets pumped out by
Hewlett-Packard
, Acer and
Dell
?

Apple
did little to address these questions on its quarterly earnings call Wednesday, letting stronger than expected sales and earnings speak for themselves amidst a quarter that wrecked much of the rest of the tech industry. Shares of Apple rose $7.62, or 9.2%, to $90.45 in after-hours trading.

Net income for the quarter rose to $1.78 a share, or $1.61 billion, from $1.16 a share, or $1.05 billion, during the year-ago period. That’s 39 cents better than the $1.39 per share analysts had expected. Sales rose to $10.17 billion from $7.5 billion during the year-ago quarter. Analysts had expected sales of $9.7 billion. Adjusted for the effects of the subscription-based accounting scheme used to tally sales of iPhones, however, and Apple’s numbers are even more impressive: Earnings of $2.3 billion on sales of $11.8 billion.

Apple sold 22.7 million iPods during the quarter. On the analyst call, however, Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer noted that all of that growth came from outside the United States, where iPod sales fell 3% year-over-year. Similarly, while Apple sold 2.5 million Macintosh computers, up 9% from the year-ago quarter, that growth came thanks to sales of notebook computers.

Desktop computer sales fell 25% from the year-ago quarter. Oppenheimer said that was in part because of a tough comparison to the year-ago quarter, which followed the introduction of new Macs, but also because consumers are snapping up notebook computers, rather than desktops, in greater numbers.

Apple sold 4.3 million iPhones, up 88% from the year-ago quarter.

Analysts also asked about the health of Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs, who is on medical leave through June. Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook described the company’s employees as “wicked smart,” and said Apple’s values are “well entrenched.”

“Regardless of who is in what job, those values are so embedded in this company that Apple will do extremely well,” Cook said. “I strongly believe Apple is doing the best work in its history.”

When asked about
Palm
, whose new touch-screen phone offers many features first seen on Apple’s iPhone, Cook said Apple will move aggressively to defend its patents. “I don’t want to talk about any specific company,” Cook said. “We will not stand for having our IP ripped off and we will use whatever weapons we have at our disposal, I don’t know that we can be any more clear than that.”

Asked about netbooks, Cook said they offer an “inferior” customer experience, but added that Apple is “watching” the category’s development.

Apple’s guidance was vague, although perhaps less so than usual. Oppenheimer said he expects sales of between $7.6 billion and $8.0 billion and earnings per share of 90 cents to $1 for the quarter ending in March. Those figures are well short of the earnings per share of $1.13 on $8.2 billion in sales investors are expecting, but Apple typically offers very conservative guidance.